Fast-Break Football at N. Carolina

August 27, 2012

AP Photo

The first playbook Larry Fedora ever wrote might be buried in a box, maybe in an attic, lost to time but not memory. Fedora doesn’t know where it is, but he knows this much: “I don’t want to have to recreate one, I can tell you that.”

He drew it up in the spring and fall of 1999, after Fedora, now the North Carolina head coach, became the offensive coordinator at Middle Tennessee State. It was his first coordinator job, and Fedora knew what kind of offense he wanted to install.

He envisioned a lot of wide receivers, running all variations of routes. He envisioned a quarterback who could throw as well as he could run. He envisioned a perfect balance between run and pass, with an array of skill players exploiting mismatches. And he envisioned all of it happening in a quick, blinding flurry of plays, one after the next.